Video: From cutting hair in the street to owner a fancy barbershop

Coming from humble beginnings in Promosa, Cornwill Kruger was just 17 years old when one of his friends asked him to cut his hair for church.

It all started with a pair of scissors and an afro comb and progressed to the cutting machine. To Cornwill’s surprise, his friend was delighted, and the haircuts started happening more frequently.

Over time, more and more people started noticing Connie’s neat work, and many were eager to experience his magical hands. “Before I knew it, I was cutting most of the church’s hair,” Connie recalled.

“I was never interested in being well known or turning it into a business, so I cut hair inside the church to avoid attracting more people. But over time, people from outside started noticing and I would constantly get referrals.”

Despite his growing new interest, Connie was cutting hair for free at the time. “Within no time, I was cutting the pastor and bishop’s hair, and that felt like an extreme blessing to me,” he said. From giving a friend a haircut for church to being noticed by a few more people and eventually giving most of the church haircuts, Connie was now cutting hair for most people in Promosa.

“I fell in love with it. I realized that I would spend most of my day doing it; it was extremely time consuming,” he said. That’s when Connie started charging for his cuts as a reward for his hard work. “I charged R 15 per cut. After the pastor passed away, I moved places a lot and eventually moved to cut hair in my mom’s yard.”

Still committed to his job in retail and furthering his little brother’s music interest, Cornwill still wasn’t taking his new venture too seriously. “It was something I did on the side, but I wasn’t too committed at the time,” he recalled. That all changed in 2015 when his mother passed away. “I realised I was not set up for a 9 to 5 job and decided to quit and start my own thing. I gathered my equipment and set up shop two years later,” he recalled.

“I decided to start a Facebook page and began advertising my work.” The response was massive but also quite overwhelming because Cornwill was doing all the work himself. “I would sometimes start cutting hair at eight in the morning and finish at three the next morning,” he recalled.

It was difficult because he was cutting under a tree and would have to move where there was light in-between hours. Over time, he brought his little brother Daneon Kruger along and together, they made things work. There is a special bond between the two, and their extremely friendly personalities have an inviting effect.

They have now developed a “beginning and finish system”, where Daneon starts cutting the hair and Connie does the finishing work. “This has helped us gain the clients’ trust because they usually insist on having their hair done solely by me. But over time, they have learnt to trust my brother too.”

Now 33, Connie has built a superb barber shop in his mom’s garage, which he launched in September last year. “Should we get funding, we plan to move to a bigger workspace and hire more staff,” he says. “I still have a lot of ideas and eventually plan to expand and open two more branches in Ikageng and town.”

Connie says his inspiration comes from God, his family and the few good friends he has. “I am grateful to my clients who have grown over the years. I am truly grateful to them for showing me so much appreciation and moving around with me when I was unsettled and kept moving,” he said. “He [Cornwill] might not see it this way, but it is more than just a haircut,” his friend of five years, Shadrian Johnson, said. “Every time he cuts my hair, I feel uplifted and empowered in my place of work.

He is truly a great inspiration, not only to us but to Promosa as a whole.” Cornwill stands out from the rest because he works very late hours, so anyone coming from work is sure to find his shop open after hours. “We do not close until the last client,” he said.

Cornwill’s message to anyone looking to start a business, especially the youth of Potchefstroom, is to do it and never give up. “Just when things feel overwhelmingly difficult, and you feel like giving up, that is where your breakthrough lies,” he said.